I hope that title was enough to make You With a Clue open this thread.
The serious question is: Does moth-ball smelling cat crap tell you anything diagnostically?
Never smelled anything like that on a cat before.
This is about the 16 pound, kitten-tolerent Slacker that I’m test-driving from my local shelter. This isn’t a cat I have owned and that has a new, weird symptom. Shelter folks don’t know and will ask their DVM today when she comes for a big Spay/Neuter Factory they are doing.
Maybe he stayed in grandma’s closet too long?
Has his crap always smelled like this or is it a recent development? Could he have eaten mothballs (they are quite toxic to cats, I believe)?
[QUOTE=oliverreed;7638150]
Has his crap always smelled like this or is it a recent development? Could he have eaten mothballs (they are quite toxic to cats, I believe)?[/QUOTE]
Nah, I don’t think this is a case of “mothballs in, mothballs out.”
I don’t have mothballs. (Ew x1)
He came crapping this way from the shelter. I feed him the same food. Same mothball turds.
And they smell strong, too. This isn’t a faint thing like a bouquet on wine. (Ew x3)
Google “mothball breath” and read some of the stuff people post there about humans.
A few also mention feces. Responses are kind of all over the board but it is not an imaginary thing.
Does cat’s breath also smell? How about his fur?
How about changing his food?
[QUOTE=Chall;7638241]
Google “mothball breath” and read some of the stuff people post there about humans.
A few also mention feces. Responses are kind of all over the board but it is not an imaginary thing.
Does cat’s breath also smell? How about his fur?[/QUOTE]
No and no.
If his breath, bootie and fur smelled like mothballs, he never would have gotten this far in life.
That would be a big ol’ Ew x5 (2x each for the bootie and breath).
[QUOTE=Calamber;7638482]
How about changing his food?[/QUOTE]
this!
I Googled it, and one common suggestion is internal parasites. One poor woman had a little girl with this problem also. Some owners had extensive blood work, scans, and test run, and still no reason why the moth ball smell occurred. A couple of owners thought the Royal Canin cat food (however, it’s spelled) caused it for their animal, but they never came back and said if a food change made a difference.
[QUOTE=JanM;7639082]
I Googled it, and one common suggestion is internal parasites. One poor woman had a little girl with this problem also. Some owners had extensive blood work, scans, and test run, and still no reason why the moth ball smell occurred. A couple of owners thought the Royal Canin cat food (however, it’s spelled) caused it for their animal, but they never came back and said if a food change made a difference.[/QUOTE]
I do appreciate the googling on my behalf. I will explore the internal parasites and food thing. It was so unusual/heinous/distinctive that I thought I would ask here and receive a quick/obvious answer if there was one.
I will say, however, that at a luscious 16 pounds with great fur, I wouldn’t think this bonbon of a cat had worms.
Oh, no backup medical articles, but my cat diagnosed with pancreatitus had very foul smelling feces, which looked like patches of tar.
I never got a clear dx on her though. It could have been one of those encrusted hair ball things too.
[QUOTE=Chall;7639305]
Oh, no backup medical articles, but my cat diagnosed with pancreatitus had very foul smelling feces, which looked like patches of tar.
I never got a clear dx on her though. It could have been one of those encrusted hair ball things too.[/QUOTE]
Hmm. So all was patches or tar, or some regular “cat logs” plus some tar patches? I do find something like little tar patches in his box, but then the regular turds, too.
Oh, and this cat doesn’t poop enough/often. I’ll bet he’s one of those that stays a little backed up.
Arthritic, big and backed up. I have been here before with a cat. And the other one was diabetic also.
Remind me why I like these cats?
Lol, I took a picture for my vet. Apparently “this is not done” in the vet world and he wouldn’t even look at it. Mostly tarry but some log. Her breath was foul, but she had dental care. Her stomach would flip around visibly and violently and She was on omeprazole. The emergency clinic took X-rays but said it was hard to diagnose.
I don’t think they had scopes available.
She had been hit by a car when younger which sometimes results in a narrowing of the bowels.
One thing that made her happy in all this was wheat grass. She went nuts over it. In the summer she grazed the lawn like a very picky cow.
When I had dogs there were strange differences with them, and they were apparently just the way the dog was created. One dog only had two dentals in her whole life, and one was right after I adopted her. The previous owner fed her wet kibble, so it really stuck to the teeth. The other dog had the stickiest dog bowl, and her saliva was sticky. That one only lived to seven, but had at least five dentals in her life. It may be the cat just has a peculiar odor, and always will.
It could be a chemical thing, just as my dog had strange saliva, and always did. One person on the bulletin board suggested probiotics, and I think that might be a harmless one to try. It might be an intestinal bacteria that’s harmless to the cat, but may be an imbalance that the probiotics would help restore the balance. Except for the smell, I guess the cat is healthy, so except for your sense of smell, whatever it is must be harmless to the cat.
[QUOTE=Chall;7639473]
Lol, I took a picture for my vet. Apparently “this is not done” in the vet world and he wouldn’t even look at it. Mostly tarry but some log. Her breath was foul, but she had dental care. Her stomach would flip around visibly and violently and She was on omeprazole. The emergency clinic took X-rays but said it was hard to diagnose.
I don’t think they had scopes available.
She had been hit by a car when younger which sometimes results in a narrowing of the bowels.
One thing that made her happy in all this was wheat grass. She went nuts over it. In the summer she grazed the lawn like a very picky cow.[/QUOTE]
Weird.
Weren’t you just waiting for her to flip over on the dining room table so that the alien could bust out and glom onto her face with the snake tail around her neck?
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